Drumming Song
by Digitallace
Summary: Are the drums driving Draco to Harry, away from him, or just driving him mad?  The 7th in a series based on 'Lungs' by Florence   The Machine Mature content


Author's Note: This is the first in a series I'm writing based on the album 'Lungs' by Florence + The Machine. There will be a story written for each song, but not all of them will be Drarry, so I'm not putting them all together as one group, but once I get another posted I'll attach them to a collection. This one will be number 7 in the collection, and based on (obviously) The Drumming Song. If you haven't heard it before, I suggest you do. The lyrics are at the end. Many thanks to my Beta, Deb, who worked on this one for me. Maybe I'll talk her into doing the Beta on 'Kiss With a Fist' even though she hates NextGen.

* * *

><p>Harry latched onto the hollow of the blond's neck, his tongue like silk where it caressed him. Draco let his head fall back, angling to give Potter better access and carefully withholding as many embarrassing noises as he could.<p>

Kissing Potter had been an accident of sorts. The Gryffindor prat had been skulking the corridors long past curfew and it was Draco's turn as Head Boy to prowl them. It was only natural that he deduct Gryffindor House Points, and equally natural that he threaten to bring Potter in to see Snape.

It seemed Potter wanted a fight, however, and Draco was happy to oblige there as well. Open-palms turned to fists, which morphed into vicious shoves and never once did either boy even pay their wands a second glance. But then Potter got the best of Malfoy's footing, as he was oft to do, and they both went down like mighty trees. Together they crashed to the ground, Harry's back hitting the cold stone and Draco's chest pressed tightly to the Gryffindor's.

He didn't know what had come over him, and in the end he could only blame the deafening drum of his heartbeat as he stared down into grass-green eyes that looked like the Hogwarts grounds in spring. Glasses askew, Potter's eyes were even more visible and brighter than Draco thought should be legal.

The first kiss had been a hesitant, frantic press of lips. Draco waited for Potter to shove him away or make some snide remark about being a poufter. But Potter didn't move. At all. He neither encouraged nor discouraged the kiss, so Draco pulled away and went back to staring.

Neither boy said a word in those fluttering moments, but the drumming seemed to grow and grow inside Draco's head, urging him forward, urging him into humiliation. Draco refused, he wouldn't give himself over to Potter's taunting so easily, but he didn't stop staring either, the drumming so loud now that he was sure his rival could hear it.

And then the impossible happened. While Draco was watching those glittering gemstone eyes and listening to the steady 'thrum thrum thrum thrum', Potter had slipped his hands under Draco's robes and his rough fingertips grazed bare flesh.

The drumming grew to an unbearable volume, echoing through is entire body as if it were a hollow shell, but the moment Potter's lips touched his again, the cacophony ceased. And then he felt the first taste of his rival's tongue and it was like he was drowning in the brilliant silence of gasping breaths and scraping teeth and muffled moans.

He couldn't remember getting off the floor, or at what point Harry had pinned him to the wall with arms that were much stronger than they looked. All he could remember was the drums and the stopping and the starting and the blissful way Potter's lips moved along his jaw. "Do you hear it?" he gasped out, and Potter replied around his collarbone.

"Hush."

It was a demand, and perhaps Draco should have heeded his words, but the drums were beating again and driving him mad with desire. "The drums, can you hear them?" he pressed.

Potter stopped. Everything. Moving, licking, touching, kissing. All of it came to an abrupt halt and he scrutinized Draco anew. "Are you pissed?" he asked first.

"No," Draco replied honestly. He hated all the students in his House that thought passing out drunk in the common room made them attractive. It didn't. Their tongues tended to loll out of their heads and they drooled all over the communal throw pillows. It was disgusting. Draco didn't drink at all unless there was something worth drinking - and there rarely was - but even then he was the perfect Malfoy in his habit. Always moderation, never enough to lose control. That should have been the Malfoy motto carved into the crest of his ring.

Never. Lose. Control.

But he was losing control now. Of his emotions, of the situation, and of Potter. Although, that would imply he had ever _had _control over the suddenly stunning Gryffindor in his arms. Why had he never noticed that Potter's eyes glowed like fireflies, or that his hair was satiny soft, or that his lips formed the perfect bow?

"Confunded? Feverish?" Harry attempted, the back of his hand pressed coolly against Draco's forehead. "You're hot."

"Why thank you, you're not so bad yourself," Draco smirked, and although Harry narrowed his eyes, those sparkling emerald eyes, his lips formed a subtle smile of their own.

"You're not in your right mind," Harry breathed at last, and Draco thought the word 'torn' would be appropriate for the gaze leveled on his heated face.

"Are you?" Draco asked, fishing under Potter's jumper and gripping the boy's trim waist.

"I don't know."

Draco never thought he'd ever heard those words willingly tumble from the Chosen One's mouth without some sort of excuse behind them. But now they were just words, softly breathed words that had them lingering on a precipice. Either Potter dove in, head first, and this went further, blissfully further, or he tucked tail and ran.

"Kiss me," Draco whispered, his eyes half-lidded and all doubt was erased from Harry's face as he leaned in to capture Draco's swollen lips.

Draco let the drums take him, beating out a rhythm through his chest as Harry snogged him within an inch of his life. Where had he learned to kiss like that? Jealousy turned the drums into a low, rumbling beat that sent heat through his belly and made him clutch the raven-haired Gryffindor closer.

Clothes fell away in an ambiguous pile, green mixing with red so easily that you might think they belonged together - like Christmas morning. Harry hissed when fingers ghosted over his nipples, and Draco enjoyed the sound so much he lingered there, exploring Harry's body with nimble fingers and tongue.

He felt the wrongness of it right through to his core. The fact that Potter was a bloke was actually so low on the list of wrongness it nearly brought a giggle to his throat. He was losing control. With a Gryffindor. With an enemy. If his father could see him now…. But the drums spurred him forward. The aching drums that beat so loudly and so hard that he thought his ribs might rattle and break.

Draco fell to his knees, pulled there by the almighty snare crashing across his skin. He could feel Potter tense above him, but he wouldn't let the prudish Gryffindor ruin the beat. He licked a long stripe up his thickened cock and relished in the incoherent gurgle that accompanied the symphony of drums inside of him.

Carefully he guided the phallus into his mouth, and although he'd never done this before, he could catch the gist of what he was supposed to do. He wondered vaguely if Potter would be able to feel the drums vibrating through his lips as he slowly swallowed his nemesis and sucked.

Potter's hands clambered at the wall, trying for purchase as Draco's quick-learning mouth both gave and stole pleasure he'd never known before. Eventually those rough, strong fingers buried in Draco's soft, blond hair and tugged gently as he worked, creating a snarl within him that rivaled any cymbal.

When he looked up, those emerald gates were closed off to him, Harry's eyelashes fluttering prettily against his flushed cheeks. It occurred to him then that Potter could be more than awkward, or handsome in a rugged sort of way. Harry could be lovely and open and vulnerable. Had it not been for the persistent drumming, Draco might have used that moment to begin calculating Potter's downfall, but instead he continued to mouth the man's cock, taking it in, out and in again with an expert swirl of tongue.

It was obvious when Potter was nearing release. His whole body seemed to tighten like the string on a perfectly tuned violin, making the brunet's words of warning entirely unnecessary. The first hot jet of fluid startled him nonetheless, not because it was unpleasant, simply because it was new. He quickly adapted to the unusual sensation and swallowed convulsively, trying to milk the hero for all he was worth.

Finally, when Potter was sagging and sated, Draco stood and ravaged his mouth with abandon. He found enjoyment in Potter's unique flavor, and felt immersed in it when they kissed. He also took great satisfaction from the fact that Potter could taste himself on Draco's tongue as it plunged past his lips and teeth to scour every eager inch of him.

The fingers that had recently tangled in his blond hair, quickly shifted to Draco's hips and then one, tentative hand moved from his waist to his cock. Draco hissed as Harry's hot fingers curled around him and stroked, all the while listening to the drums beat out a deafening rhythm.

He rutted wantonly into Potter's fist, his eyes closed as he let the pulsating thunder take him. Slowly it built inside of him, higher and higher, louder and louder until he thought he might explode.

And then he did.

Draco covered Harry's hand and naked torso with his seed, spreading it up Potter's chest with his twitching fingers. He marked the man, claimed him as his own for this one moment in time, this singular heartbeat in his life, Harry Potter belonged to him and him alone.

And then the beat faded around him to a solid, purring thrum and gave him leave to look back upon what he'd done. Remorse filled him. Disgust. Betrayal. Self-loathing. But behind all of it, swallowing all of it, was the drums and the lust and the heat.

He kissed Potter again, a crashing press of lips that left both of them wanting, and then he quickly scooped up his clothes and ran.

* * *

><p>The drumming refused to cease after that night. Every time his mind drifted to the reclusive hero, the gentle thrumming would grow, but worse, when Draco pointedly tried not to think of Potter, the drumming became unbearable. So his mind was inundated with the memory of lips, teeth and tongue, corded muscles and straining desires and drums…always the drums.<p>

It grew more powerful with proximity.

Draco didn't know what time of day was the worst. At dinner, he could feel the buildup of a long afternoon filled with the boom-ba-room of the drums in his skull, pounding at the nape of his neck and vibrating down until his cock was hard and pulsing to the beat. All of the blood in his veins lit up when Potter walked into the room, his jeweled gaze always grazing, always wondering, always penetrating.

It drove Draco to the brink of madness and pushed him over. Time and time again he'd fall, those lips calling him like a sweet siren, but he always shook himself awake before he gave in, always trying to ignore the drums.

Mornings were awful too.

All night the thumping echoed through his mind, coupled with dreams he couldn't prevent as easily as he could slap himself into sense when he was awake. Lips, tongue and teeth, always perfect, always Harry's, always right and delicious, accosted his sleeping mind, making him unbearably hard when he woke.

Wanking didn't help. Nothing did.

After a week of aching so terrible it nearly crippled him, Draco found himself near the top of the Astronomy Tower; a mighty bell above him, clanging viciously for students to change classes. It was the toll that drew him, higher, higher, the drums fading the closer he got, drowned out by a louder sound.

For a moment he felt peace as he rounded the top and leaned against the iron railing, looking out over the school grounds. For a sheer, blissful moment Draco thought he could find a way to live here, close to the bell that would rid him of the drumming demons in his veins, but then his stormy eyes trained expertly on a form flying over the Quidditch Pitch. The familiar figure gliding so gracefully on his broom, cutting through the breeze like a knife cuts butter.

And then the clamor was back.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Draco cried out, holding his hands to his ears as if that might keep the drumming out, trying to hold it at bay just a little bit longer.

But the pounding was within him.

* * *

><p>The days went by in a blur of cacophony, the nights a low thrumming in his veins. He knew he was starting to show signs of his madness. His eyes were ringed with red, his face gaunt and pale, his body full of twitches. He noticed the looks, he couldn't help it. He noticed the pity and the whispers and the scorn, each one punctuated with the mighty clash of a drum so loud it made him visibly wince.<p>

"He's crazy."

"He's snapped."

"Maybe the Dark Lord is inside of him now, fighting for dominance."

"Maybe Potter melted his poor brain."

They were all things he heard rumored around him, all things he'd at some point thought himself. It was Potter's fault, though; he knew it at his core. That deep, thorough pounding resounding through is body like a cannon firing a shot every time Potter was near. He never got any peace.

"What is wrong with you?" a voice demanded from behind him, louder than the drums, louder than anything. It rang through him with precision and cut him to the quick. He turned, his eyes lighting on the face that haunted his every step.

"Potter," he mouthed, but no sound came out, just a breathy sigh at the boy stalked toward him.

"The other night," he began, but Draco begged him with his eyes not to say it, not to speak aloud the abomination he'd proved himself to be that night. With Potter in his mouth, pumping, spurting, the feel of fluid coursing down his throat as it mingled contentedly with the drums in his belly.

"A mistake," Draco finally muttered over the raging din. "A huge mistake."

Harry looked stricken; there was no other word for it. But only for a moment. The proud set of jaw, the straightening of shoulders and the challenging head tilt returned just as quickly. "My feelings exactly," he replied, his voice growing faint beneath the drums. "I'd only come to ask you to stop stalking my steps."

"I'm not stalking you," Draco hissed, his voice lost, everything lost to the rhythm of need pulsing through him. Even as he said the words he stepped closer to the obstinate Gryffindor, drawn, pulled, like some clinging child.

Harry narrowed his eyes to sharp slits and stepped forward as well. It was a challenge, as all things were between them. But Draco had no hope of winning, not with the blasted percussion in his head, making him weak, making him falter.

Another step.

Another beat.

Step.

Beat.

Step.

Beat.

Until the sound of his heart outweighed that of the drums and their lips came together in a harried cymbal crash. His breath came out in shallow gasps as his fingers buried and clung inside Harry's robes. The boy cradled him as if he were a fragile thing, able to break apart at any moment, and perhaps he was.

But the moment their flesh came together, Draco's ears were met only with the sweet sound of Harry's moans, and the hot feel of his breath all over his skin. Warmth grazed over his hardened cock, a groan escaping his lips in reply. Fingers ghosted over places no one had ever touched, pressing, probing, greedy. "Yes. Yes. Yes," he chanted into the silence of his uncluttered mind.

The feel of Harry inside of him drove his back to arch and his lips to cry out in pleasure. Deftly, Harry's fingers stroked him in time with his cock slamming home, filling Draco with a rhythm he found far more tolerable than the drums.

Harry sucked a mark right over Draco's heart, a violent purple welt in stark contrast to his pale skin, and the moment Draco saw it he came with a scream, burying his head in the crook of Potter's slim throat. He felt Harry gasp, felt him swell, felt him explode inside of his tight heat and heard the cry of Draco's name on his lips.

"What did we just do?" Draco asked softly as sleep tugged at his eyelids.

He caught the edge of Harry's smile. "If you have to ask, we were doing it wrong."

Draco chuckled, a breathy sound, as his body went limp in Harry's arms and he let sleep carry him.

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><p>When he woke, his head was throbbing.<p>

Like a bolt, Draco sat up, alert, afraid. It was back. The drums.

But no.

A headache. It was only a headache.

And no wonder. He'd slept on a cold stone floor; his body draped partly over Potter's, the boys half-hard cock still buried inside of him.

He moved with effort, wincing with every fraction, his body taut as a bow, waiting for Potter to stir. But all the raven-haired boy did was murmur and shift, moaning softly as he slipped from Draco's abused hole. Draco rose and watched him for a long moment before gathering what clothes he could find and fleeing this scene as fast as his lithe legs would carry him.

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><p>The water gently lapped at Draco's ankles, soaking through the brushed denim of his trousers as he stood at the edge of the Black Lake and stared out over its mirrored surface. A week had passed since his last encounter with Harry. A long, miserable and deafening week. His jaw ached from gritting his teeth against the terrible drumming. His palms were covered in half-moon slits from clenching his fists too tightly.<p>

He'd been drawn to the lake, wondering when bathwater wouldn't do the trick if the enormity of the lake would be enough to drown the drums. He tried to focus his gaze on a point in front of him, but his eyes went hazy and pulsed with the beat inside his skull, the ever present pulsating beat.

Oh, how he hated it.

The water chilled his calves and the dark stain expanded up the material of his trousers until they were soaked through to his pants. Everything shrank and clung in the cold wet, and Draco missed the days when this would have repulsed him. But now, the drumming thrum inside of him drove him deeper, wondering how long before a Grindylow pulled him under and silenced that drum for good.

Thud. Deeper. Thud-thud. Deeper still.

Draco opened his mouth and let the flood come, filling his throat, his nose, his lungs. Breathing the water in like sweet spring air. Anything to drown the cacophony in his head. "Please," he breathed beneath the subtle waves. "Please, shut up."

His limbs felt like rocks at his side, his eyelids grew heavy with sleep, yet still the pounding persisted, still it taunted him, echoing impossibly louder beneath the water.

Draco swallowed convulsively, taking in as much of the lake as he could, trying to bury the sound, even if it meant burying his body too. He didn't care any longer, he couldn't take the noise. He couldn't stake the stares or the pity or the fear or the drums. Those damnable drums.

Blinking sleepily into the murky depths, he sighed and let the water take him.

He didn't feel the strong arm surround his waist and yank him upward. He didn't feel the manic pounding on his chest. Only distantly did he register the powerful fizzle of magic coursing through his veins. Only then did he feel the press of hot lips against his, warm and familiar, but underneath the same pounding rhythm that was driving him mad.

"Draco!" the voice screamed while the boy in question sputtered and choked and vomited the fluid from his lungs. His head spun, weak and dizzy, but when he cracked his eyes he saw Harry looming over him, his hair a disheveled mop of wet curls. He longed to touch it, to run his fingers through it, knowing it felt nicer than it looked.

Harry.

He didn't think he'd said it aloud until the boy nodded, his face streaked with what appeared to be tears. "Yes, it's me you arse," he growled, shaking Draco ever so slightly.

"Why?" Draco coughed, his voice ragged and hollow in his clogged ears.

"If you want to be rid of me, just say so. There's no need to walk into the lake and die," Harry persisted, looking angry and hurt and terribly sad.

"I didn't. Not that." It was true. Draco didn't want to die, but he couldn't live with this racket in his head. And only Harry could ease it.

"It bloody well looked like it to me," Harry huffed, his fingers feathering through Draco's wet mane. "Leave me all you like, but not like that. Never like that."

"I don't want to leave. I want you," Draco admitted for the first time either out loud or to himself. He did. He wanted him so badly it made him ache. "But I'm afraid."

"You think I'm not?" Harry demanded, glaring as Draco scoffed.

"You're fearless, Potter. Everyone knows that."

The words hung between them for a long time before Harry finally leaned down to capture Draco's lips in a kiss far less harried, but no less passionate than the others they'd shared. Draco basked in the bliss of him, the feel of his lips, the strong line of his body, the intensity of his gaze.

He was in love.

And for a moment the drums swelled to a deafening crescendo, until it was all Draco could hear, but with each press of Harry's mouth and each whispered word between them, the pounding faded, leaving only a soft, sweet melody behind.

He clung to that song the way he clung to Harry as his old enemy took him on the muddy ground beside the lake. He'd never been so happy to be so perfectly filthy and surrounded by nothing but the sounds of slapping flesh and hushed moans.

And no drums.

FIN

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><p>There's a drumming noise inside my head<br>That starts when you're around  
>I swear that you could hear it<br>It makes such an all mighty sound

There's a drumming noise inside my head  
>That throws me to the ground<br>I swear that you should hear it  
>It makes such an all mighty sound<p>

Louder than sirens  
>Louder than bells<br>Sweeter than heaven  
>And hotter than hell<p>

I ran to a tower where the church bells chime  
>I hoped that they would clear my mind<br>They left a ringing in my ear  
>But that drum's beating loud and clear<p>

Louder than sirens  
>Louder than bells<br>Sweeter than heaven  
>And hotter than hell<p>

Louder than sirens  
>Louder than bells<br>Sweeter than heaven  
>And hotter than hell<p>

Louder than sirens  
>Louder than bells<br>Sweeter than heaven  
>And hotter than hell<p>

As I move my feet towards your body  
>I can hear this beat it fills my head up<br>And gets louder and louder  
>It fills my head up and gets louder and louder<p>

I run to the river and dive straight in  
>I pray that the water will drown out the din<br>But as the water fills my mouth  
>It couldn't wash the echoes out<br>But as the water fills my mouth  
>It couldn't wash the echoes out<p>

I swallow the sound and it swallows me whole  
>Till there's nothing left inside my soul<br>As empty as that beating drum  
>But the sound has just begun<p>

As I move my feet towards your body  
>I can hear this beat it fills my head up<br>And gets louder and louder  
>It fills my head up and gets louder and louder<p>

There's a drumming noise inside my head  
>That starts when you're around<br>I swear that you could hear it  
>It makes such an all mighty sound<p>

There's a drumming noise inside my head  
>That starts when you're around<br>I swear that you could hear it  
>It makes such an all mighty sound<p>

Louder than sirens  
>Louder than bells<br>Sweeter than heaven  
>And hotter than hell<p>

Louder than sirens  
>Louder than bells<br>Sweeter than heaven  
>And hotter than hell<p>

As I move my feet towards your body  
>I can hear this beat it fills my head up<br>And gets louder and louder  
>It fills my head up and gets louder and louder<p> 


End file.
